This blog shares our reflections on how digitization is changing the world, with specific attention to cultural processes and contexts.

The Fall of Local News and Rise of Social Media Platforms: Information Disorders in the European Union and the Western Balkans

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, disinformation has reached unprecedented proportions, posing a number of challenges to societies worldwide. Many nation-states have taken measures to combat disinformation; however, the strategies and policies adopted to address this issue differ in each region of the world. Encountering disinformation myself made me think about the lack of…

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Platform Empires: Navigating the Terrain of Data Colonialism and the Movement Towards Digital Decolonization

Introduction Following narratives of the Silicon Valley, platforms have emerged as the harbingers of unity and waves of democratic movements. The umbrella movement or the Black Lives Matter protests, as an example, have often been quoted as showing how digital platforms play crucial roles in democratic movements (Agur & Frisch, 2019). Opposing this narrative, scholars…

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Methodological Detours: Three Ways to Analyse AirBnB Listings

The ‘Methodology’ section of published articles tends to present research as a smooth process, whereby investigators move neatly from research design, to data collection, analysis and finally ‘write it all up’. This blog post provides a ‘behind the scenes’ for our project, ‘Belong Anywhere: The Politics of Airbnb in Occupied Territories’. The project is funded…

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Bothered (or not bothered) to care? Affects, Affordances and Algorithms of Digital Caring

This post was written by Peter Safronov Affective valences of AI-assisted communication  When dealing with algorithms, users frequently imbue them with affective valences (Bucher, 2017). People, for example, become emotionally invested while interacting with chatbots, much as they would with a human (Araujo, 2018). AI-powered technologies provide personalized experiences suited to the user’s specific wants…

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ON DISPLAY: WHAT’S INSIDE THE SHOP?

This post was written by Claire van den Helder How do international students in Amsterdam use Instagram to navigate their new social surroundings, and how do the perils and joys of curating messages shape their self-development? The project “On Display” seeks to understand how users craft and negotiate their Instagram presence by doing in-depth interviews…

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